Exodus
by ZephyrLemon
Summary: A look into Trinity's past via the portal of Evanescence lyrics.


A/N: I've taken many jaunts into Trinity's past and although they all have some things in common (I honestly believe at some instinctual level that her parents, though they weren't stereotypically abusive, didn't give a shit about her so she was seeking a father figure, ie Morpheus), I think each one represents and explains a different aspect of who she is now as we know her. These Evanescence lyrics just screamed "TRINITY" to me so I had to flesh them out, especially because I identify her with shadows and dark things.  
  
The lyrics are in between the tildes (those little squiggly lines).  
  
"Exodus"  
  
3/2/03  
  
~ My black backpack stuffed with broken dreams  
  
Twenty bucks should get me through the week ~  
  
I needed the money so I stole it from my parents. They probably noticed it was missing before they noticed I was. That's okay. I needed the money more than I needed them. I could make do with less than the creature comforts afforded in my home. But somehow the less I was with other people, the more I could feel - I could feel myself, be myself, and dream myself out of that earthly purgatory.  
  
~ Never said a word of discontentment  
  
Thought it a thousand times but now  
  
I'm leaving home ~  
  
If they'd really cared, they would've noticed something was wrong. They would've asked, looked concerned, seen if there was anything they could do. Granted, I still would've withdrawn and replied with a negative to their inquiries. But at least they could've tried.  
  
Just shows that you can't hold out for help from anybody.  
  
If I hadn't been so scared maybe I would've done something about my rising feeling of unrest a long time ago. (Why won't this fear go away?) I found fragments of an answer at a pretty young age. But when you're afraid you send yourself in circles so your trail leads nowhere but you can pretend like you're going somewhere. Like sitting in the dark just because no one before you flipped the switch on. You bullshit yourself into believing your quest is real so at least one thing in your life doesn't feel as fake as the rest of the world. Fucking Don Quixote.  
  
~ Here in the shadows  
  
I'm safe, I'm free  
  
I've nowhere else to go  
  
But I cannot stay where I don't belong ~  
  
In this darkness everything and nothing seems real. You can reach out and touch infinity or you can be an isolated island in a vacuous hole. The possibilities don't end until the light begins and illuminates this pseudo world with all these phony people living out their spurious lives that they pretend have meaning.  
  
Not free. Never free. But what can they do? You can't open a door if you're looking for a window.  
  
(Someone please let the fresh air in - I'm suffocating!)  
  
Then just as I felt that desperate edge looming close - so close I could reach out and touch it, if only I knew what it was - the life-giving air rushed in with an enigma named Morpheus.  
  
Initially, he appeared to be just another caliginous stalker, scoping out loner women who appeared helpless. Helpless my ass. I stayed out of his reach for some time until he proved his skills and authenticity through several obscure hacker maneuvers that I hadn't even thought of trying. I decided to listen to his bullshit about opening doors for me that only I can walk through - it seemed inane, but for some reason it made more sense than anything else in my messed up world.  
  
He didn't belong here either, but he had another place to go. I think the fact that he would take me with him made up my mind.  
  
~ Two months pass by and it's getting cold  
  
I know I'm not lost I'm just alone  
  
But I won't cry, I won't give up, I can't go back now  
  
Waking up is knowing who you really are ~  
  
The first thing you notice is it's cold. The last thing you notice, whether it's at the end of a day or at the end of a sentence, is it's cold. I haven't been here long, but you'd think you'd get used to it. It's called acclimation.  
  
No. It gets worse, not better.  
  
When other people are with you they share their heat. Sure, I'm with other people here. The problem is that other people are never with me. (Reach out to them? Doesn't happen.) Walls are built for protection but it's hard to see over them to know when the coast is clear. The threat beyond has been slain for years, but from inside I can't tell if it's retreating or regrouping. So I don't answer the calls for deconstruction.  
  
Alone, I just bite my lip and clench my stomach. And I don't let go. If I do, I fall into something worse than death - living a lie. That's the trade I made: I wake up and find out that my whole existence was a crock and now I get to be cold (inside and out), alone, and struggle for my survival on a daily basis, but hey, at least this is real.  
  
Right?  
  
~ In the shadows  
  
I'm safe, I'm free  
  
I've nowhere else to go  
  
But I cannot stay here ~  
  
I stand firmly facing the wind as the undertow laps at my ankles and attempts to pull me with it into oblivion. They say that's being a rebel, but that's just how my life has made me. (I didn't ask for this.) I'm part of something now, something greater than I am alone. No one ever expected anything from me before. Morpheus told me to forget my past but if that is what made me who I am, isn't that just as important as what happens now? In this now I make choices of life and death. Talk about having high standards to meet. (Will I ever measure up?) This will change everyone's lives, or lack thereof. What kind of life is this, anyway?  
  
I wouldn't trade it for the world. (I already have.)  
  
~ Oh, show me the shadow where true meaning lies  
  
So much more dismay in empty eyes ~  
  
I found some answers, yet questions still seem to find me more frequently than I can answer them. I am safe here in the little alcove behind my stone wall, but I still search. Morpheus hunts the One's reincarnate. I don't know what I'm looking for (a wrecking ball, perhaps?), but I am encouraged by an unnamed hope, ephemeral as it may be.  
  
For years I have only uncovered disappointment, though. The thing I want to feel and hear is absent from the isolated units moving through their simulated existence:  
  
The feeling of true life's warmth; the sound of a beating heart.  
  
Crying out in augmenting thumps from its undersized cage, it pulses to break free and pump warm lifeblood through the blood vessels of the numb limbs of its ignorant carcass.  
  
That's how you can tell the potentials from the rest of the useless coppertops. You can feel their soul and hear their theoretical heart drumming. The others just look at you with blank stares; or rather, they look through you.  
  
Morpheus tells me he believes he got it right this time. He begins to develop my belief too when I feel my own blood pump hotter and hear the dull chinking of stone breaking apart as we watch a digitized image of a heart working stronger to bring new life to an unused body. 


End file.
